At least six people including three children were miraculously rescued on Monday after they spent more than a week trapped under the rubble following two devastating earthquakes in Turkey’s south, amid growing public anger and speculation over delays for the country's crucial general election.

The election is scheduled for May 14, but the massive destruction, and devastation from the earthquake could prompt the country’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to postpone it. Government critics fear that such delay will be to prevent Erdogan, who is being blamed for inadequate response in the quake aftermath, from facing an inevitable defeat in the polls. 

Turkish authorities put the official death toll at 31,643 and injured at 80,278 as of this writing. Search and rescue teams are still scrambling to spot traces of life under the piles of rubble that critics say were turned into mass graves first by the earthquakes and then by the government's failure to respond to the disaster quickly.

The political and socio-economic impact of the massive scale of destruction remains unknown, but the humanitarian toll is growing. Millions of displaced people are still desperately seeking to meet basic needs including shelters, hygiene products and heating in frigid weather. The 10 Turkish provinces that were affected by the twin devastating earthquakes that hit the country only nine hours apart were home to more than 13 million.